Website Structure
website page navigation diagram
Today’s post was supposed to be about my new shopping cart that I added to my site; however, I had to disable it because it broke the visual editor in my wordpress dashboard. It’s a shame because I spent a good 6 hours the other night configuring it and another 3 hours this morning trying to fix it. Since I’m only offering parent’s of the kids enrolled in my after school clay class the option of paying by credit card, and I am not currently selling anything on my website, I need to move on. I’ve already invested too much time on the shopping cart. Double dang.
My easy solution? I added PayPal and Google Checkout buttons on my “Teaching Schedule” page for the parents who choose to pay via CC. Google Checkout was easy to set up, and I’ve never used it before. Fees are lower than PayPal, however, making this an attractive option. The only drawback is that customers have to sign up for a Google account if they don’t already have one.
| PayPal Fees for “Premier” account holders | Google Checkout Fees for non Adwords users |
| 2.9% + $0.30 USD | 2% + $0.20 per transaction |
| Fees are lower depending volume and type of account. | Fees are free if you are an AdWords user and have high volume. |
Back to the title of the post…I decided to diagram pages I think would be good to include on my site using good old fashioned pen and paper . I know several of you are currently revamping your sites and I highly recommend diagramming it and also to be thinking about what kind of functionality you want to have both on the back end and also what is available for public consumption. I did this after I started adding pages – slaps self on head – but as soon as I drew the diagram, it was so much easier to move forward. To help me decide how I wanted to structure my site, I looked at several other people’s site – mostly other clay folk, but also other artists in other media.
Thanks for the great responses to the word of the year post! I have taken some of your advice and broken my website down into small chunks to make it a less daunting task. I am using the same strategy for the Potters Guild site as well. I still have some projects on my to-do list as it relates to my site but, I feel like I have a better handle now. In the meantime, I need to finish the Guild’s site.
My next post is going to highlight some of the WordPress Plugins that I am using that are proving invaluable!
Have a great weekend,
~Cynthia
